Dumping Cod

woo I think its wrong for the fish to die for nothing, if we have to kill an animal to survive thats part of nature..but to kill them just to be thrown back im speechless..

 

Hi Woo,I didn't see the article but I know what you mean.When we were down in Hastings,the fishermen were just dumping on the beach anything that they had caught in their nets that wouldn't be able to be sold in the fish markets like dog fish and starfish.The birds were having a field day,but it is such a shame that these creatures are caught,killed and then tossed away. :eek:

 

I am definitely against throwing back in the water dead fish, because it will pollute the water.

 

Miriflores,they are talking about it at the moment on the TV and they said on there that the fish thrown back are eaten by Seagulls and Seals.The fishermen were trying to catch prawns but caught Cod and other fish instead.By the time they throw them back the fish have died of shock or I should imagine suffocation :eek: It is still wrong though whichever way we look at it.

 

The quotas are set by the EC as usual, in an effort to try to stop the overfishing of cod, as I understand it.
This has probably been going on for years.
The quota system surely doesn't work or achieve what it sets out to do, so there should be a re-think on the part of the EC, but they dont do anything very fast.
A few years back it came to light that foreign fishing boats were landing and selling their catch in the UK, thereby counting against the UK quotas.

The whole thing stinks.

 

As usual it boils down to europe. I hate to think what Eu membership has cost us over the years and all thanks to thatcher.

If only UKIP were better run.

 

The problem is that you have to have fish quotas otherwise the fish stocks would have disappeared altogether. You can argue the fairness and the efficiency of the system but it was a case of either allowing the fish stocks to recover and taking out some fishing boats or allowing fishing to carry on regardk less and then shortly afterwards a complete collapse of the whole industry. It has happened before where things such a herring industry have completely collapsed and never recovered.
Trouble is they don't know what they are catching until they pull the nets up. I wonder whether we need to have large areas in which fishing is never allowed ie. marine reserves so that they will provide core areas from which fish will move as their numbers increase. They have to got to work out a system in which you can harvest the fish without overfishing and you cannot do that as a single country.
Incidentally Maggie Thatcher may have been a mad old bat but she did not take us into the EU.
Actually i think the quotas are working. I heard that fishery scientists had been pleasantly surprised that they had found more cod than expected in the North Sea.
The dead fish are a waste but they won't pollute the water. They will all be eaten, by birds, seals, other fish and scavengers like prawns, crabs and lobsters. When fish are gutted it is better the waste is chucked back in to feed the sea creatures than taken to landfill. Throwing plastic, sewage or oil in pollutes the water but nature will recycle dead fish.

 

Quite right Geoff this is an interesting article on plastic polution.
http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/health-fitness/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we_2_printer.shtml

 

It does seem a waste and if the cod is thrown back dead into the water then most people would think that the cod would be better off on our plates instead but then again fishermen might abuse this idea so I don't really think that idea would work.

At least now not all boats are going out all the time fishing and I'm pretty sure this small step is helping the fish stock.
Helen.xxx.

 

I agree with Helofadigger - once you start to make an exception, for the best of reasons, there are many people who will abuse it.

 

Why can't they be siezed at port and auctioned for Life boat funds ?

 

I think Geoff's idea of no-go fishing areas would be much more effective, (if of course the right areas are picked) than the situation at the moment.
As I remember it, it was Ted Heath that got us mixed up with the EU.
Yet another politcal failure, and he came out of it very well.

 

What I could not understand was that they used to allow trawlers to fish for things like sand eels that were then used for fertiliser or animal feed. Don't know whether it is still allowed - anyone know? It was called industrial fishing. And what eats sand eels apart from the puffins....well all the fish that we like to eat like mackerel and cod etc. You can't get cod if you are going to take away their food supply. Seemed nuts to me.
Everyone seems to think the EU was a disaster..which we joined after a referendum. Even though the organisation's bureaucracy is abit of a joke and could be run a lot better the EU economies still seem to be doing better than the US. I am buying seed from the US at present and they are dirt cheap due to the exchange rate. Cheaper than buying seed over here.